“In the writings of Paul, the entity of man is divided into a trine – flesh, psychical existence or soul, and the overshadowing and at the same time interior entity of SPIRIT. His phraseology is very definite, when he teaches the anastasis, or the continuation of life of those who have died. He maintains that there is a psychical body which is sown in the corruptible, and a spiritual body that is raised in incorruptible substance. “The first man is of the earth earthy, the second man from heaven.” Even James, (iii., 15), identifies the soul by saying that its “wisdom descendeth not from the above, but is terrestrial, psychical, demoniacal”. (see Greek text). Plato, speaking of the Soul, (psuché), observes that “when she allies herself to the nous, (divine substance, a god, as psuché is a goddess), she does everything aright and felicitously; but the case is otherwise when she attaches herself to Annoia.”
What Plato calls nous, Paul terms the Spirit; and Jesus makes the heart what Paul says of the flesh. The natural condition of mankind was called in Greek αποστασια; the new condition αναστασις. In Adam came the former, (death), in Christ the latter, (resurrection), for it is he who first publicly taught mankind the “Noble Path” to Eternal life, as Gautama pointed the same Path to Nirvana. To accomplish both ends there was but one way, according to the teachings of both. “Poverty, chastity, contemplation or inner prayer; contempt for wealth and the illusive joys of this world.”
“Enter on this Path and put an end to sorrow; verily the Path has been preached by me, who have found out how to quench the darts of grief. You yourselves must make the effort; the Buddhas are only preachers. The thoughtful who enter the Path are freed from the bondage of the Deceiver, (Mara).”
“Enter ye in at the strait gate, for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction. Follow me. Everyone that heareth these sayings and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man.” (Matthew 7 and 8). “I can of mine own self do nothing.” (John 5: 30). “The care of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, choke the word.” (Matthew 13:22), say the Christians; and it is only by shaking off all delusions that the Buddhist enters on the “Path” which will lead him “away from the restless tossing waves of the ocean of life”, and take him “to the calm City of Peace, to the real joy and rest of Nirvana.”
The Greek philosophers are alike made misty instead of mystic by their too learned translators. The Egyptians revered the Divine Spirit, the One-Only One, as NOUT. It is most evident that it is from that word that Anaxagoras borrowed his denominative nous, or, as he calls it, Νους αυτοκρατες – the Mind or Spirit self-potent, the αρcηετες κινεσεος. “All things”, says he, “were in chaos; then came Νους, (mind), and introduced order.” He also denominated this Νους, the One that ruled the many. In his idea Νους was God; and the Logos was man, the emanation of the former. The external powers perceived phenomena; the nous alone recognized noumena or subjective things. This is purely Buddhistic and esoteric.
Here Socrates took his clue and followed it, and Plato after him, with the whole world of interior knowledge. Where the old Ionico-Italian world culminated in Anaxagoras, the new world began with Socrates and Plato. Pythagoras made the Soul a self-moving unit, with three elements, the nous, the phren, and the thumos; the latter two, shared with the brutes; the former only, being his essential self. So, the charge that he taught transmigration is refuted; he taught no more than Gautama-Buddha ever did, whatever the popular superstition of the Hindu rabble made of it after his death. Whether Pythagoras borrowed from Buddha, or Buddha from somebody else, matters not; the esoteric doctrine is the same.”
H. P. Blavatsky
The Mark Of God: Understanding Your "I AM Presence" 